Authorities in Gansu province sealed off parts of the northern city of Yumen after a resident died of bubonic plague.

Several districts of the city of about 100,000 inhabitants were turned into special quarantine zones. The report said all the 151 people quarantined for having had contact with the victim were in good health. Quarantine is part of the standard medical protocol when dealing with a plague outbreak. The city had set aside $161,200 ftact or emergency vaccinations, the Jiuquan Daily, a local newspaper, said on Tuesday.

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The 38-year-old victim died on July 16 after coming into contact with a marmot, a wild rodent.

Also known as the Black Death, bubonic plague is an infection of the lymphatic system, causing gangrene, seizures, fever and characteristic swellings of the lymph nodes called "buboes." First recorded in the 6th Century, a subsequent 1330 outbreak originating in Mongolia spread to the Italian trading city of Messina in 1347, resulting in one of the deadliest and far-flung epidemics in history, killing of nearly a third of the European alone.

In the mid-1800s, it killed 12 million people in China. 

Today, bubonic plague outbreaks are rare; flare-ups seem to occur during cooler summers that follow wet winters. The World Health Organization recorded only 2,118 cases in 2003 worldwide, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates only 1,000 to 2,500 people a year contract plague. However, left untreated, plague can kill within 24 hours; about one in seven of those infected die from the disease. When a case is suspected and diagnosed early, a health care provider can prescribe specific antibiotics (generally streptomycin or gentamycin). Certain other antibiotics are also effective.

No further cases in Yumen have since been reported.